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Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque was the scene of another violent confrontation between Israeli police and Muslim worshippers on Friday—shortly after dawn prayers.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, reported that 42 people were injured at the holy site in Israeli occupied Jerusalem, and 22 needed to be rushed to hospitals. Jewish Israelis call the compound the Temple Mount and also claim the site, which has caused a history of violent clashes.
The Trends Journal has reported on the brewing tensions in Israel in recent weeks. (See “SHOOTING BREAKS OUT IN ISRAEL: REVENGE OR TERRORISM?” “APARTHEID STATE OF ISRAEL CLAMPING DOWN ON PALESTINIANS” and “AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL: ISRAEL’S TREATMENT OF PALESTINIANS AMOUNTS TO APARTHEID.”)
This is the most recent of several clashes at the site. An Israeli police spokesman told The Wall Street Journal that Palestinians were giving a “distorted description of the events on the Temple Mount.”
One Doctors Without Borders physician who is based in Hebron, in the Palestinian Territories, wrote in Al Jazeera that victims from the clashes were coming in waves.
He wrote:
“One of the patients was a young girl, shot in the back with a rubber bullet—blunt-force trauma that could have fractured her ribs or other bones. We checked her lungs with an ultrasound and luckily, they were fine. We moved on to another patient with a wound on his lower back. He had been hit with a baton and was in a lot of pain. He could not move his legs. We suspected a spinal fracture. After stabilizing him, we decided to transfer him to the nearest hospital for an X-ray. We wondered how badly he must have been beaten.”
The WSJ reported that Ramadan, Passover, and Easter overlapped this year, which added to the tensions. The holidays are now over, and there is a concern that there could be new rocket attacks.
“A trigger could happen at any moment,” Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst at the Crisis Group, told the paper. “I think what we’re seeing is both sides are pushing it to the limit without wanting it to come out to all-out warfare.”
Hamas warned that there will be attacks on synagogues if Israel carries out another raid at the mosque.
“Whoever takes the decision to repeat this scene (deploying police inside mosques) will be taking the decision to destroy thousands of synagogues across the world,” Yahya Sinwar, Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip, said in a speech, according to France 24.
He said Israel would face hundreds of rockets if there is another act of “aggression” at the mosque in May, when Israel marks its capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, the report said. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli forces captured the Old City (Jerusalem) where the mosque is located, along with the rest of East Jerusalem and continue to illegally occupy them.
TRENDPOST: While the Western media continually chastises Russia for its war against Ukraine and its intent to occupy Ukraine, those who note Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land are denounced as being “anti-Semites.”
In the 1967 six day war, Israel invaded and seized Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights, expelling some 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, while gaining stolen territory that was three and a half times its original size.
Al Jazeera reported that 26 Palestinians were killed in the past month, the majority during “confrontations with Israeli forces.”
The most recent was Yahya Adwan, 27, who was fatally shot during an Israeli army operation in the town of Azzun, the report said. An Israeli army guard was also killed Friday night. Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade claimed responsibility.
“We claim responsibility for the heroic operation in the colony of Ariel in which a Zionist officer was killed, in response to violations committed by the occupation government in Jerusalem,” the group said.
Yet, while the mass killings of Palestinians does not make headline news in the West, “14-year-old boy killed in Russian strike on Odessa” was the CNN headline yesterday.