International condemnations multiply on Wednesday April 5 following violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque, where the Israeli police intervened to dislodge Palestinian worshipers, in the middle of the religious holiday season.
In riot gear, Israeli police burst into the mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday and arrested more than 350 people who had barricaded themselves there, described as “rioters” by the police.
Again on Wednesday, crowds of Muslims gathered in and around Al-Aqsa Mosque for the nightly Ramadan prayers. According to the Israeli police, “dozens of outlaws, some masked, fired fireworks and rocks into the mosque.”
The police prevented them from barricading themselves there and dispersed them, allowing a return to calm, she reported in a press release. Israeli forces blocked access to the site, AFP journalists noted.
Extreme concern in the White House
This violence comes as Muslims have reached the middle of the month of Ramadan and Jews have been celebrating Passover since Wednesday evening, in a particularly tense climate between Israelis and Palestinians since the beginning of the year.
The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, said he was “shocked and dismayed” by the “violence and beatings” of the Israeli security forces, according to his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric.
The White House said it was “extremely concerned”, calling on “all parties to avoid further escalation”, as two new rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Wednesday evening – according to the Israeli army and witnesses – following similar shootings the previous night which resulted in Israeli strikes.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque is located on the Esplanade of the Mosques, in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the occupied Holy City. The esplanade is built on what the Jews call the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism.
On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, Israeli forces armed with “sticks, weapons, tear gas canisters and smoke bombs” burst into the mosque, “breaking doors and windows”, while worshipers there were gathered to pray at night, Abdelkarim Ikraiem, a 74-year-old Palestinian, told AFP.
A video widely circulated on social networks shows police clubbing people on the ground inside the building. The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Wednesday it had treated at least 37 wounded.
“Red line”
“Trampling the Al-Aqsa mosque is our red line”, also said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while the Arab League, which organized an extraordinary meeting, warned once morest “provocations” hurting “feelings believers”.
The Palestinian movement Hamas, in power in Gaza, denounced an “unprecedented crime”.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has experienced a new outbreak of violence since the inauguration, at the end of December, of one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel.
Nearly 110 people have died since the start of the year. In May 2021, following violence on the compound and elsewhere in East Jerusalem, Hamas fired rockets into Israel, resulting in an eleven-day war.
With AFP
