Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Amid Spiking Violence, Israeli Police Clash With Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque

Israeli police and Palestinians clashed on Sunday at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound, where violence in recent weeks has raised international concern.

No injuries or arrests were initially reported, after Palestinian youths, chanting “God is great,” threw rocks at police in riot gear, who responded with what a spokeswoman described as “appropriate riot dispersal means.”

She declined to elaborate, but said calm had been restored. Israel Radio said police had fired rubber bullets.

Palestinians have said they fear that increasing visits by Jewish groups to the holy compound, revered by Jews as the site of Biblical temples, are eroding Muslim religious control there.

Israel has pledged to maintain Muslim prayer rights at al-Aqsa, but, citing security concerns, has frequently banned young Muslim men from entering the area, which it captured when it seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank in a 1967 war.

There have been similar days of unrest at al-Aqsa over the past several weeks during a period coinciding with the onset of major Jewish and Muslim holidays.

Sunday’s incident occurred on the eve of the Jewish festival of Sukkoth and the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. An Israeli ban on Jewish visits to the compound, imposed several days ago in a bid to lower tensions, was still in effect.

The White House has said it was deeply concerned about the violence at the site and has called on all sides to “exercise restraint and refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric.”

While violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has not approached the levels of past Palestinian uprisings, there has been a surge of Palestinian stone-throwing.

On Thursday, Israel’s security cabinet of senior ministers decided to impose a minimum four-year jail term on Palestinian petrol bombers and rock throwers and to ease open-fire regulations.

In a statement, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, called the new rules “a mere pretext to justify the escalating Israeli crimes against the people of Palestine.”

Israeli police said late on Saturday they had arrested four Palestinian teenagers from East Jerusalem suspected of involvement in a stone-throwing attack on a car on Sept. 13 that caused the death of its 64-year-old Israeli driver.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.