Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has spoken to leaders in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in recent days to raise his concerns about Israel’s actions at al-Aqsa, which he sees as an attempt to change the long-standing status quo at the site, where Jewish access is permitted but Jewish prayer banned.
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Israel has called up a few hundred reservists to beef up security following outbreaks of violence and Palestinian riots at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
The council said both worshippers and visitors should be without fear of violence or intimidation while at the compound.
An extra 800 policemen will bolster the regular Jerusalem force and men under the age of 40 will be barred from praying at the al-Aqsa mosque, due to intelligence received by Israel that young men have been planning to clash with security forces on the Temple Mount Friday morning.
The White House has said it is deeply concerned about the violence and called on all sides to “exercise restraint and refrain from provocative action and rhetoric”. Several Palestinian protesters were trapped inside the compound. Israeli Jews may enter the compound but can not pray or conduct religious ceremonies there.
“People can’t think they can use religious sites as a safe haven for violence”, said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat September 17.
One proposal is to let snipers with relatively low-velocity 0.22 calibre rifles operate against stone-throwers in Jerusalem, as they already do in the occupied West Bank. Members of a youth wing from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party visited the site Thursday.
Following Ya’alon’s order, the PLO Executive Committee held an emergency meeting in Ramallah and called for “confronting Israeli terror schemes” against Islamic holy sites, while Hamas said that the government’s move was tantamount to a “declaration of war”. The compound in Jerusalem’s Old City is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the site of the two biblical Jewish temples.
An autopsy is being carried out with Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian pathologists present. When police arrived at the scene, the bus had been set ablaze.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and French President François Hollande have discussed the recent violence at the al-Aqsa Mosque that erupted amidst clashes between the Israeli police and Palestinian protesters.
On Sunday, Palestinians throwing stones killed an Israeli civilian – 64-year-old Alexander Levlovitz – after he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a lamppost in Jerusalem’s East Talpiot neighborhood. Suggestions that the rules are to be changed find ready listeners and easily lead to protests which can turn violent.
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In the West Bank overnight, Israeli troops shot and seriously wounded Ahmed Khatatbeh, 26, near the northern city of Nablus, Palestinian medical sources said.
