More than 210 Palestinian worshippers including six policemen have been injured in clashes with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and elsewhere in occupied East Jerusalem, as weeks-long tensions between Israel and the Palestinians over Jerusalem soared again.
Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of Palestinian worshippers packed into the mosque on the final Friday of Ramadan and many stayed on to protest in support of Palestinians facing eviction from their homes on Israeli-occupied land claimed by Jewish settlers.The Reuters news service reports that 204 Palestinians and six police officers have been injured in the night-time clashes in at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and around East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said 88 of the Palestinians injured were taken to hospital after being hit with rubber-coated metal bullets.
Clashes continue at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound
Hours after clashes first broke out, large reinforcements from the Israeli police forces continued to stream into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.Palestinian activists reported that Israeli forces were continuing to target worshippers in the compound as a large numbers of Palestinians held prayers inside the mosque.
Calls for Israeli police to withdraw
Appealing for calm on the compound through the mosque’s loudspeakers, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, the director of Al-Aqsa Mosque, called on Israeli police to halt their attacks and withdraw from the mosque courtyard.“Police must immediately stop firing stun grenades at worshippers, and the youth must calm down and be quiet!”
Iran’s Khamenei calls for continuing ‘resistance’
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called in a televised address for continuing armed “resistance” in the Palestinian territories and urged Muslim nations support it.
“The downward and declining movement of the Zionist regime has begun and will not stop,” said Khamenei as Iran marked its own al-Quds, or Jerusalem, Day.
