Witnesses on the ground told Al Jazeera that the Israeli police entered the mosque shortly before 7am local time (04:00 GMT) on Monday. “The Al-Aqsa mosque is ours”.
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Netanyahu didn’t directly attack the handshake between US President Barack Obama and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, which took place this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, but said it was part of a general trend of the world welcoming Iran into the family of nations, which he intends to criticize during his speech Thursday.
Hussain Hamayel, a spokesperson for Fatah party, told Xinhua that the strike was an “outcry against the Israeli violations and attacks on al-Aqsa mosque”.
The army said the woman was transferred to a hospital in Israel after the incident.
Also on Sunday, clashes erupted across the compound after Israeli police stormed the holy site and fired rubber-coated steel bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters.
The altercation came on the second day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and following two days of clashes between Israel Police and security forces and Muslim protesters on the site. At least 12 Palestinian protesters were injured byIsraeli forces during the Ramaballah riots, the Palestinian Maan news agency reported. But calls by a group of religious Jews to visit the site, coupled with periodic Israeli restrictions on Muslim visits, have inflamed tensions.
“The Palestinian rioters at the temple Mount that bring in weapons, pipe bombs and fireworks – they are the ones who hurt the sanctity of the place and breach the status quo”.
Muslims have been alarmed by an increase in visits by Jews and fear rules governing the compound will be changed.
Israel has deployed thousands of police throughout sensitive spots in Jerusalem.
The al-Aqsa Mosque is Islam’s third holiest site after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina, Saudi Arabia.
The compound has been the scene of repeated clashes in recent weeks, provoking global calls for calm.
Jews make up a small minority of visitors to the Temple Mount.
The radical northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel and the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, which represents Arab communities in Israel, had urged Muslims to go to the compound to defend it on Sunday.
Israel has pledged to maintain Muslim prayer rights at al-Aqsa, but, citing security concerns, has frequently banned young Muslim men from entering the area, which it captured when it seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank in a 1967 war.
“We remind Palestinian and Israeli authorities of their duty to investigate any alleged excessive of force by their security forces and to ensure accountability”.
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The day before Israeli elections in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there would never be a Palestinian state on his watch, only to reverse himself days later and recommit to the longstanding objective of a two-state solution.
