Temple Mount Partially Reopens Two Days After Attack
Holy Site Fight: Palestinians hold up plastic guns during demonstrations on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Image by getty images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Temple Mount partially reopened on Sunday, with metal detectors places at the open entrances, two days after three Arab-Israeli visitors to the site opened fire on Israel Police guarding the area, killing two Druze-Arab officers.
Few Muslim worshippers entered the site on Sunday in protest of the metal detectors, according to reports (prior to Sunday, metal detectors only were placed at the entrance for tourists and Jewish visitors). Worshippers instead held their early afternoon prayer service at the gate.
The Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday also was closed off, except to local residents and tourists, according to reports.
Netanyahu said Saturday night before he left on a plane to Paris that he spoke with the parents of the two Druze police officers killed in the Friday attack. “I sent them a hug from every citizen of Israel and participation in their awful grief,” Netanyahu said.
He also announced that he ordered the mourners’ tents of the families of the Arab-Israeli murderers to be destroyed.
Police spent the two days of the Temple Mount closure searching the site for weapons, and reportedly removed their shoes when they entered the holy site to conduct their searches. Knives, slingshots, batons, spikes, unexploded ordnance, binoculars and dummy plastic weapons were found at the site, but no firearms and ammunition, Haaretz reported.
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