Jerusalem:
Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades towards rock-hurling Palestinian youth at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday amid increasing anger more than the possible eviction of Palestinians from properties on land claimed by Jewish settlers.
At least 178 Palestinians and six officers have been injured in the evening-time clashes at Islam’s third-holiest website and about East Jerusalem, Palestinian medics and Israeli police stated, as thousands of Palestinians faced off with various hundred Israeli police in riot gear.
Tension has mounted in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with nightly clashes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah – a neighbourhood exactly where many Palestinian households face eviction in a extended-operating legal case.
Calls for calm and restraint poured in on Friday from the United States and the United Nations, with other individuals such as the European Union and Jordan voicing alarm at the feasible evictions.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians packed into the hilltop compound surrounding the mosque earlier on Friday for prayers. Many stayed on to protest against the evictions in the city at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But following the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan quickly, clashes broke out at Al-Aqsa with smaller sized scuffles close to Sheikh Jarrah, which sits close to the walled Old City’s popular Damascus Gate.
Police utilised water cannon mounted on armoured autos to disperse various hundred protesters gathered close to the properties of households facing possible eviction.
“If we don’t stand with this group of people here, (evictions) will (come) to my house, her house, his house and to every Palestinian who lives here,” stated protester Bashar Mahmoud, 23, from the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Issawiya.
‘CALM DOWN AND BE QUIET’
An Aqsa official appealed for calm on the compound via the mosque’s loudspeakers. “Police must immediately stop firing stun grenades at worshippers, and the youth must calm down and be quiet!”
Israel’s Supreme Court will hold a hearing on the Sheikh Jarrah evictions on Monday, the very same day that Israel marks Jerusalem Day – its annual celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem through the 1967 Middle East war.
The Palestine Red Crescent ambulance service stated 88 of the Palestinians injured have been taken to hospital right after getting hit with rubber-coated metal bullets.
One of the injured lost an eye, two suffered critical head wounds and two had their jaws fractured, the Red Crescent stated. The rest of the injuries have been minor, it added.
A police spokeswoman stated Palestinians had thrown rocks, fireworks and other objects towards officers, with some of the six injured requiring healthcare therapy.
“We will respond with a heavy hand to any violent disturbance, rioting or harm to our officers, and will work to find those responsible and bring them to justice,” the spokeswoman stated.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated he “held (Israel) responsible for the dangerous developments and sinful attacks taking place in the holy city” and known as on the U.N. Security Council to hold an urgent session on the concern.
Violence has also enhanced in the occupied West Bank, exactly where two Palestinian gunmen have been killed and a third critically injured on Friday right after they opened fire at an Israeli base, police stated. After that incident, Israel’s military stated it would send extra combat troops to the West Bank.
‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’
Sheikh Jarrah’s residents are overwhelmingly Palestinian, but the neighbourhood also consists of a website revered by religious Jews as the tomb of an ancient higher priest, Simon the Just.
The spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights stated the evictions, “if ordered and implemented, would violate Israel’s obligations under international law” on East Jerusalem territory it captured and occupied, along with the West Bank, from neighbouring Jordan in 1967.
“We call on Israel to immediately halt all forced evictions, including those in Sheikh Jarrah, and to cease any activity that would further contribute to a coercive environment and lead to a risk of forcible transfer,” spokesman Rupert Colville stated on Friday.
Washington was “deeply concerned about the heightened tensions in Jerusalem,” stated U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter.
“As we head into a sensitive period in the days ahead, it will be critical for all sides to ensure calm and act responsibly to deescalate tensions and avoid violent confrontation,” Porter stated.
The European Union, Jordan and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council have expressed alarm at the possible evictions.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi stated Jordan had offered the Palestinian Authority documents that he stated showed the Sheikh Jarrah Palestinians have been the “legitimate owners” of their properties.
Israel’s “provocative steps in occupied Jerusalem and violation of Palestinian rights, including the rights of the people of Sheikh Jarrah in their homes, is playing with fire,” Safadi stated in a foreign ministry statement on Twitter.
Israel’s foreign ministry stated on Friday that Palestinians have been “presenting a real-estate dispute between private parties as a nationalist cause, in order to incite violence in Jerusalem.” Palestinians rejected the allegation.
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