OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM — Dozens of Muslim worshipers were arrested
or injured early Sunday morning as Israeli forces launched another raid on
Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem, just two days after their raid
that injured more than 150 Palestinians, reported the Palestinian news agency,
Wafa.
اضافة اعلان
Israeli forces said they entered the compound to
facilitate routine visits by Jews to the holy site — which they refer to as the
Temple Mount — and that Palestinians had stockpiled stones and set up barriers
in the compound, according to Al-Jazeera News.
Wafa reported that extremist Israeli Jewish
organizations have urged followers to stage a mass provocative visit to the
mosque during the Passover holiday, which coincides with the Muslim fasting
month of Ramadan, a time when thousands of Muslims, predominantly Palestinians,
usually stay at the holy site for worship day and night.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 19 Palestinians
were wounded, including at least five who were hospitalized. It said some had
been wounded with rubber-coated steel bullets, according to AFP.
A Wafa correspondent said that the attacking forces
chased worshipers and fired stun grenades and teargas randomly to empty the
holy site of its Muslim worshipers in order to secure the entry of Israeli
Jewish settlers wishing to celebrate Passover inside the courtyards of the
mosque.
Senior Palestinian official Hussein Al-Sheikh said
Sunday that “Israel’s dangerous escalation in the Al-Aqsa compound ... is a
blatant attack on our holy places”, and called on the international community
to intervene.
The UN has called for calm, a year after violence in
and around the mosque compound escalated into an 11-day war in Gaza.
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