Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at Jerusalem holy site leave 200 injured
- Officers responded to thrown rocks with tear gas and stun grenades at the Al-Aqsa Mosque
- There have been nightly clashes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where Palestinian families face eviction from homes claimed by Jewish settlers
Israeli police shot tear gas and stun grenades towards rock-hurling Palestinian youth at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday amid growing anger over the potential eviction of Palestinians from land on homes claimed by Jewish settlers.
At least 200 Palestinians and six officers were injured in the nighttime clashes at Islam’s third-holiest site, Palestinian medics and Israeli police said, as thousands of Palestinians faced off with several hundred Israeli police in riot gear.
Tension has mounted in Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with nightly clashes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah – a neighbourhood where numerous Palestinian families face eviction in a long-running legal case.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians packed into the hilltop compound surrounding Al-Aqsa mosque earlier on Friday for prayers. Many stayed on to protest against the evictions in the city at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Our people will remain steadfast and patient in their homes, in our blessed land,” Al-Aqsa’s Sheikh Abu Sunainah said in support of Sheikh Jarrah during his Friday sermon.
But following the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan fast, clashes broke out at Al-Aqsa with smaller scuffles near Sheikh Jarrah, which sits near the walled Old City’s famous Damascus Gate.
Police used water cannon mounted on armoured vehicles to disperse protesters gathered near the homes of families facing potential eviction. Some chanted a refrain common at Jerusalem protests: “With our soul, with our blood, we will redeem you, oh Aqsa.”
An Aqsa official appealed for calm through the mosque’s loudspeakers. “Police must immediately stop firing stun grenades at worshippers, and the youth must calm down and be quiet!”
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Israel’s Supreme Court will hold a hearing on the Sheikh Jarrah evictions on Monday.
Sheikh Jarrah’s residents are overwhelmingly Palestinian, but the neighbourhood also contains a site revered by religious Jews as the tomb of an ancient high priest, Simon the Just.
The spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the evictions, “if ordered and implemented, would violate Israel’s obligations under international law” on East Jerusalem territory it captured from neighbouring Jordan and which it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
“We call on Israel to immediately halt all forced evictions, including those in Sheikh Jarrah, and to cease any activity that would further contribute to a coercive environment and lead to a risk of forcible transfer,” spokesman Rupert Colville said on Friday.
Washington was “deeply concerned about the heightened tensions in Jerusalem”, said US State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter.
“As we head into a sensitive period in the days ahead, it will be critical for all sides to ensure calm and act responsibly to de-escalate tensions and avoid violent confrontation,” Porter said.
The European Union, Kuwait and Jordan have expressed alarm at the potential evictions. By dusk on Friday, scores of Israeli police in riot gear and about 100 protesters had gathered outside the eviction site.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said Jordan had given the Palestinian Authority documents that he said showed the Sheikh Jarrah Palestinians were the “legitimate owners” of their homes.
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Israel’s “provocative steps in occupied Jerusalem and violation of Palestinian rights, including the rights of the people of Sheikh Jarrah in their homes, is playing with fire,” Safadi said in a foreign ministry statement on Twitter.
Israel’s foreign ministry said on Friday Palestinians were “presenting a real-estate dispute between private parties as a nationalist cause, in order to incite violence in Jerusalem”, Palestinians rejected the allegation.
Israeli-Palestinian clashes have broken out nightly in Sheikh Jarrah ahead of Monday’s court hearing.
