42 Palestinians injured in Israeli police intervention

By Enes Canli

JARUSALEM (AA) - At least 12 people were injured on Friday in an Israeli police intervention with plastic bullets and sound bombs after dawn prayer.

Israeli police intervened after Palestinian youths entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem from Bab al-Maghrib, one of the gates to the mosque, and threw stones after performing the dawn prayer.

First aid was given to 42 injured people, and 22 of them were hospitalized, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement.

Also, the police reportedly prevented the teams of the Palestine Red Crescent Society from entering the mosque complex.

Israeli police forced out those in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa, and closed the doors of the mosque to Muslims coming from outside for the last Friday prayer of Ramadan.

The police withdrew from the mosque around two hours after the raid. They are still deployed outside the Bab al-Maghrib

Additionally, eyewitnesses said that two people were taken into custody.

Hundreds of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank protest against the Israeli police by chanting and shouting slogans in the alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located, according to images shared on social media.

Tensions have been running high across the Palestinian territories since the beginning of April amid repeated Israeli arrest campaigns in the occupied West Bank and daily settler incursions into the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem.