For second day, Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa beset by clashes

By Kaamil Ahmed

JERUSALEM (AA) - Tensions at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque continued for the second day Monday after Israeli police again entered the mosque compound with the stated aim of securing it for Jewish visitors.

The mosque's Palestinian director, Sheikh Omar Kiswani, told Anadolu Agency that 35 Palestinian worshippers had been injured on Monday in clashes with Israeli police -- clashes which, he said, had been prompted by the entry into the site by large numbers of Jewish settlers earlier in the day.

He went on to assert that Israeli police had promised earlier to suspend such visits by Jewish settlers during the last 10 days of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month, which will come to an end in the first week of July.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, meanwhile, denied that the Israeli authorities were planning to seal the Maghrebi Gate -- used by non-Muslims to enter the Al-Aqsa compound -- during the period.

He said the situation at the flashpoint religious site had been contained after police responded to stone-throwing Palestinian worshippers but that no arrests had been made.

The mosque's social-media team, for its part, shared a video online of police wearing riot gear firing rubber bullets and forcing open the doors of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in which a number of Palestinian youths were reportedly been hiding.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold tweeted: "Nothing can justify the use of violence by a Palestinian mob at a holy site in Jerusalem revered by all faiths."

On Sunday, at least four Palestinians were arrested and another five injured in similar clashes that broke out inside the mosque compound.

In a Sunday statement, Palestinian resistance movement Hamas -- which has governed the blockaded Gaza Strip since 2007 -- blamed the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA)’s ongoing policy of security cooperation with Israel for the current tensions at Al-Aqsa.

"Israeli violations are encouraged by its ongoing security collaboration with the PA and the double repression [i.e., by both Israel and the PA] that faces resistance activists," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.