Israeli police arrested a Palestinian protester outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on April 22, 2022. MAHMOUD ILLEAN v AP
Clashes in Jerusalem, then two dead in the West Bank: this Friday, April 29, was again overshadowed by serious tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.
In the evening, the guard of a settlement in the north of the occupied West Bank was killed in a gun attack. This guard, in his twenties, was stationed at the entrance to Ariel’s settlement. The two attackers fled by car, the Israeli army and rescue services said. “Israeli security forces are pursuing the terrorists and several roads have been closed in the area,” the army said.
A Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli forces in the north of the West Bank in the night from Friday to Saturday, without it being known whether there is a connection to this attack, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced. The man, in his 20s, was hit in the chest “with live ammunition” during an Israeli army operation in the village of Azzoun, the ministry said in a brief statement to the press.
The ruling Hamas Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip called the attack, which killed the settlement’s guard, a “heroic operation”. “This is part of our people’s response to the attacks on al-Aqsa,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement, referring to the mosque at the al-Aqsa compound in east Jerusalem.
That day saw the first clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police, injuring at least 42 on this esplanade of mosques. Twenty-two of the injured were taken to a hospital in Jerusalem, but “none are in serious condition,” the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Israeli police said “rioters” “threw stones and set off fireworks,” with some also attempting to throw stones at the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site below.
These actions prompted police to enter the Esplanade and “use means to disperse the crowd,” according to police. Two people were arrested, one for throwing stones and the other for inciting riots, it said. Police fired rubber bullets at the scene, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP), and tear gas grenades, according to other witnesses.
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Almost three hundred injured in two weeks
Palestinian worshipers on the last Friday of Ramadan outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, April 29, 2022. AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
An uneasy calm had returned to the scene by early afternoon as a crowd of believers gathered for the last Friday of Ramadan, the month of Muslim fasting that is due to end early next week. Protesters there continued to wave Palestinian flags and the Islamist movement Hamas, an AFP journalist noted.
In the past two weeks, nearly three hundred Palestinians have been injured in violent clashes in and around the Esplanade of Mosques, Islam’s third holiest site and Judaism’s holiest site, known as the Temple Mount. This place is administered by Jordan, but its access is controlled by Israel.
This violence comes in a context of escalation following a series of anti-Israel attacks that have killed fifteen people since March 22, including an Israeli Arab police officer and two Ukrainians. Two of the attacks were carried out in the metropolitan Tel Aviv by Palestinians from the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
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After these attacks, the Israeli army conducted several operations in the West Bank, punctuated by deadly clashes. A total of 26 Palestinians and three Israeli Arabs were killed, including attackers.
Rally in support of the Palestinians in Iran
These new clashes come as this Friday also marks the Day of Al-Quds (“Jerusalem” in Arabic), established by Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Thousands of people demonstrated in Iran, an enemy of Israel, in support of the Palestinians.
Iranian paramilitary forces take part in an Al-Quds Day rally in Tehran on April 29, 2022. – / AFP
On Thursday, tenors from the Iran-affiliated Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad armed Islamist organizations held a rally at the Gaza Stadium to call for the “defense” of Jerusalem and the Esplanade of Mosques. General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, attended the event via video conference and reiterated that “the State of Israel will be defeated.”
The deployment of Israeli police forces and the presence of many Jews on the Esplanade during Ramadan, who were entitled to visit the site at certain times but not to pray there according to the current status quo, were widely acknowledged by Palestinians and several countries in the region such perceived a gesture of “provocation”. Israel will “not change” the status quo on the Esplanade of Mosques, the head of Israeli diplomacy, Yaïr Lapid, assured Sunday, who reiterated that recent police interventions on the Esplanade were “justified”.
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