2,200 Palestinians detained by Israel this year: NGO

By Qais Abu Samra

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – Israeli forces rounded up around 2,200 Palestinians since the start of this year, according to a Palestinian NGO on Wednesday.

In a statement, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said half of the detainees were taken into Israeli custody in occupied East Jerusalem.

Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in recent months amid repeated Israeli raids into Palestinian towns.

More than 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of this year, according to Palestinian figures. Fourteen Israelis have also been killed in separate attacks during the same period.

Tension escalated on Wednesday when Israeli police detained around 350 worshippers from inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem.

A group of Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Al-Qibli Prayer Hall in the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex after Jewish settlers called for a raid on the mosque. They attempted to prevent police from entering by closing its doors.

Surrounding the Al-Qibli Prayer Hall, Israeli police went up to the roof of the mosque, smashed some of the windows and initially intervened with sound bombs against the worshippers inside. Some of the people in the mosque tried to resist the police by throwing fireworks.

According to the Commission for Palestinian Prisoners Affairs, Israeli police began to release the detainees on the condition that they be removed from Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s Old City for a week.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents Islam’s third-holiest site. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, saying it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar