The Palestinian Wadi Hilweh Information Center said more than 200 Israelis entered the compound, known as the Temple Mount to Jews, and attempted to pray in contravention of an agreement on the site’s status quo.
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Some 30,000 demonstrators were expected at the march.
A Jerusalem Day march slated for Sunday will not be rerouted after the High Court rejected an urgent petition asking police to bar the parade from passing through the Old City’s Muslim Quarter.
“What happened this year is that one of the non profit organisations has petitioned to the high court asking them to ban this march to go through the Muslim quarters, the high court refused, but they put a time limit so by 7pm Jeruslaem time everyone should have evacuated here”, Abdel-Hamid said.
Hundreds of police officers were deployed throughout the capital ahead of the Jerusalem Day celebrations.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognized by the global community.
As in years past, a large portion of the participants in the demonstration were young religious nationalist Israelis, many waving flags and posters with anti-Arab slogans, Channel 2 reported. “In previous years, clashes have erupted between Israeli and Palestinian residents during marches”. This way, the ruling said, no Jewish marchers will be present in the Muslim Quarter when a ruling on the beginning of Ramadan, a month of fasting holy in Islam, will take place at 7:43 P.M.
Israeli rights group Ir Amim had asked Israel’s supreme court to bar the march from entering the Old City through the Damascus Gate, the main entry used by Palestinians. The exact day on which Ramadan begins is decided by clerics, based on the appearance of the moon.
Rosenfeld said police intend to make sure the marchers and Muslim faithful do not cross paths, hoping to ensure that “there will be no incidents whatsoever”.
Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state, whereas Israelis see all of Jerusalem as their capital.
On June 5, 1967, an unprovoked Israel invaded Palestinian, Egyptian, and Syrian territories at once.
According to the report, a meeting is to be held by the Israeli government on Sunday evening to mark the occupation of Jerusalem.
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Palestinians and Israelis outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City, May 17, 2015.
