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| Israeli forces arresting a Palestinians man. |
Israeli forces stormed
Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound as they clashed with Palestinians
for the third day straight at the
flashpoint site.
Dozens of Palestinians clashed
with the Israeli forces around the mosque, throwing stones at police who
had entered the compound and used stun grenades on protesters,
according to the Times of Israel.
The site is sacred to both
Muslims, who consider the site the third-holiest in Islam, and Jews, who
refer to the site as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
An Israeli police spokeswoman
told AFP news agency that there were no arrests or casualties as a
result of the clashes on Tuesday, saying that the Israeli forces were
attempting to disperse the crowd to prevent stone-throwers.
Footage released by Al Jazeera
showed Israeli riot police storming the mosque complex on Tuesday as
Palestinians throw stones towards them. Israeli police can then be seen
standing on top of the roof of the Al-Aqsa compound, overlooking
Jerusalem's Old City.
Palestinian protesters had
reportedly gathered at the site overnight to prepare barricades for
clashes with police and to prevent a door of the mosque being closed.
When the complex opened for visitors, stone were thrown in the direction
of the Mughrabi Gate, the only entrance for non-Muslims.
Clashes began ahead of the
beginning of the Jewish new year on Sunday, known as Rosh Hashanah, and
came after two unofficial 'Muslim patrols', Murabitun and Murabatat,
were banned from the compound by Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon
last week. He tensions and violence on the Temple Mount."
Last month, a Christian tourist
was beaten by four Muslim men for raising an Israeli flag at the site.
The Muslim men were detained and the 35-year-old Christian man may face
charges for incitement because of the sensitivity surrounding the
complex.
Israel captured the area
surrounding the complex, East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Six Day War, but
left the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the administration of a
Jordanian-Palestinian-led Islamic Waqf (Islamic Trust) because of the
potential repercussions from Muslims in the region if they seized the
complex.
Source: Newsweek
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