Hundreds of policemen were deployed near the Palestinian neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem after a week of repeated clashes between Palestinians and the police, Jerusalem District Police Commander, Brigadier General Avshalom Peled said.
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The clashes took place on Monday when Israeli forces attacked demonstrators near Aida refugee camp close to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
Two rockets were fired on Friday from Gaza at southern Israel – one was intercepted at the city of Ashkelon, while the other one exploded in an open area in Sderot, according to Haaretz. The compound is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The town has been hard-hit by rockets from neighboring Gaza, ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, over the years.
To the Palestinians, who want the mainly-Arab eastern side as their capital, the compound with its landmarks is a potent symbol of so-far unrealised statehood.
Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed the Palestinian villages, where 300,000 Palestinians live, in 1981, in a move considered illegal by many in the worldwide community.
It said the police raided the compound at around 6:45 a.m. local time (3:45 a.m. GMT) to ensure that visits could continue as usual.
Beyond that, he said, Israel must do more to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in east Jerusalem including improving the infrastructure in Palestinian neighborhoods, building more classrooms, and improving the level of education in public schools there. He said that by bringing explosive materials and rocks into the holy site, protesters had turned the “house of worship” into a “warehouse of terror”.
Netanyahu has publicly “declared war” on those who throw rocks and petrol bombs, especially after an Israeli motorist died last Sunday, apparently as a result of Palestinian stone-throwing, police said.
Protests also broke out in several locations across the West Bank.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has spoken to leaders in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt 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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Israeli fighter jets hit at least three national security sites for the Hamas government in Palestine’s Gaza strip, media reported Saturday.
