More than 150 Palestinians were injured on Friday after being targeted by Israeli police on the esplanade of the Mosques in Jerusalem. These are the first clashes in this place since Ramadan began.
Palestinian Red Crescent medics say ‘153 injured Palestinians have been transferred to hospitals in Jerusalem’ after clashes erupted when Israeli police stormed the compound of al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
“Dozens of others were treated on the site,” also added the caregivers, while the Israeli police would have made 400 arrests, according to an NGO defending Palestinian detainees.
According to the Guardian, “Most of the Palestinians were injured from rubber bullets, stun grenades and beatings with truncheons by Israeli police.” The director of the al-Asqa mosque said that the Israeli police had intervened inside this place of worship and he estimated with AFP that the place “is a red line not to be crossed” .
Israeli police felt forced to enter
For its part, the Israeli police claimed to have counted three wounded in its ranks, hit by stone throwing, while Israel said that its forces had entered before the prayers.
An action carried out following the dozen young masked rioters displaying flags of the armed Islamist movement Hamas, who had picked up stones shortly before the clashes and marched on the esplanade of the Mosques, held specified the Israeli Ministry of Affairs foreign.
“Police were forced into the field to disperse the crowd and remove stones and rocks, in an effort to prevent further violence,” he tweeted.
These actions have nothing to do with prayer, and in fact desecrate the mosque and the month of Ramadan.
Police were forced to enter the grounds to disperse the crowd and remove the stones and rocks, in order to prevent further violence. (2/3)
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) April 15, 2022
The Israeli police also remarked, “they waited until the prayers were over and the crowd started to disperse.” In a press release relayed by the British daily, she claimed that the crowd had started throwing stones in the direction of the Wailing Wall, which is a Jewish holy place, “forcing them to act”.
If, according to the Israeli Minister of National Security, Omer Barlev, “Israel had no interest” in using violence in a holy place, the officers there felt “compelled to confront the perpetrators of the stone projectiles equipped also of iron bar”. This confrontation takes place in the middle of Ramadan and a few days before Easter.
States of the world react
The United States said it was “deeply concerned by the violence in Jerusalem”, by these clashes which left 150 Palestinians injured. “We call on all parties to exercise restraint, to avoid any provocation by word or deed to preserve the historic status quo on the esplanade of the Mosques”, prayed in a press release the spokesman of the American State Department, Ned Price.
Morocco, also denounced this Saturday a “flagrant aggression by the Israeli occupation forces”, although the North African country has normalized its diplomatic relations with Israel since the end of 2020. “Rabat considers that this flagrant aggression and this provocation methodical during the holy month of Ramadan will only stir up feelings of hatred and extremism”, which could lead to a failure “of peace in the region”, estimated the kingdom.
Earlier, France had also spoken out, calling for “the greatest restraint”, while Qatar expressed its “strong condemnation of the attack on Muslim worshippers”, AFP reported.
