More than 20 Palestinians and Israelis were injured in multiple incidents in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, two days after serious violence at the flashpoint.
Sunday’s clashes have taken the number of wounded to more than 170 since Friday, at a tense time when the Jewish holiday of Passover coincides with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
They are also following deadly violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank from late March, which has killed 36 people.
Early Sunday morning, police said “hundreds” of Palestinian protesters on the mosque grounds began collecting piles of stones just before the arrival of Jewish visitors.
Jews are allowed to visit but not pray at the site, also known as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam.
Israel Police said their forces entered the compound to “remove” the protesters and “restore order”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 19 Palestinians were injured, including at least five who were hospitalized. Some were said to have been wounded with rubber-coated steel bullets.
Early Sunday morning, Jewish worshipers were seen leaving the site – barefoot for religious reasons – and protected by heavily armed police officers.
Outside the Old City, which lies in Israel-annexed East Jerusalem, Palestinian youths threw stones at passing buses and smashed their windows, prompting seven people to be treated for minor wounds, Shaare Zedek Hospital said.
Police said they had arrested 18 Palestinians, and Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev said Israel will “toughly clamp down on anyone who dares use terrorism against Israeli citizens.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the security forces “continue to be given a free hand … for any action that will provide security for the citizens of Israel,” stressing that every effort should be made to allow members of all religions to worship in Jerusalem.
King Abdullah II of Jordan – who serves as custodian of the holy sites in East Jerusalem – on Sunday urged Israel to “stop all illegal and provocative actions” that are fueling “further indignation”.
Senior Palestinian official Hussein Al Sheikh said that “Israel’s dangerous escalation in the Al-Aqsa compound … is a blatant attack on our holy sites,” and called on the international community to intervene.
Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa compound on Sunday. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesThe head of the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, had previously warned Israel that “al-Aqsa is ours and ours alone”.
“Our people have the right to access and pray in it and we will not bow [Israeli] Repression and terror,” Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Israel’s fractious ruling coalition faced a fresh split on Sunday when the Arab-Israeli Raam party “suspended” its membership amid Jerusalem violence.
The government – an ideologically disparate mix of left-wing, hard-line Jewish nationalist and religious parties and Raam – had already lost its wafer-thin majority earlier this month when a religious Jewish member resigned over a dispute over the distribution of leavened bread in hospitals.
Since then, clashes around the Al-Aqsa compound have put pressure on Raam to stop as well.
“If the government continues its moves against the people of Jerusalem…we will step down as a bloc,” Raam said in a statement hours after the recent violations surrounding al-Aqsa.
The United Nations has called for calm, a year after clashes in and around the mosque compound escalated into an 11-day war between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.
Weeks of rising tensions saw two recent deadly attacks by Palestinians in or near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv, as well as mass arrests by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
A total of 14 people have been killed in attacks on Israel since March 22.
According to a tally by Agence France-Presse, 22 Palestinians were killed in the same period, including attackers targeting Israelis.
On Friday morning, police clashed with Palestinians at the Al-Aqsa compound, including at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in a move strongly condemned by Muslim countries. About 150 people were injured in these clashes.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday that he would be in touch with all sides to “end the Israeli escalation,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.
Pope Francis prayed for peace on Sunday as Christians celebrated Easter at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, where they believe Jesus died and rose again. The Pope said in his Easter address: “May Israelis, Palestinians and all those residing in the Holy City experience, together with the pilgrims, the beauty of peace, live in fraternity and enjoy free access to the holy places, in mutual respect for the rights of everyone .”
Despite the tension, hundreds of Christians in Jerusalem staged a lively parade with processions led by marching bands with deafening drums and wailing bagpipes.