Israel shuts down Ramadan gathering
Israeli police have clashed with Palestinian protesters outside Jerusalem’s Old City during the holiest night of Ramadan in a show of force that threatened to deepen the holy city’s worst religious unrest in several years.
Earlier, police blocked busloads of pilgrims headed to Jerusalem to worship.
Police defended their actions as security moves, but these were seen as provocations by Muslims who accuse Israel of threatening their freedom of worship. Competing claims to east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have triggered serious violence in the past.
The unrest came a day after violence in which Palestinian medics said more than 200 Palestinians were wounded in clashes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound and elsewhere in Jerusalem. Friday’s violence drew condemnations from Israel’s Arab allies and calls for calm from the United States and Europe and the United Nations. The Arab League scheduled an emergency meeting for tomorrow.
Early Sunday, local time, the Israeli military said Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket at the country’s south and it fell in an open area. There were no reports of damage or casualties.
Police chief Koby Shabtai said he had deployed more police in Jerusalem following Friday night’s clashes, which left 18 police officers wounded. After weeks of nightly violence, Israelis and Palestinians were bracing for more conflict in the coming days.
‘‘The right to demonstrate will be respected but public disturbances will be met with force and zero tolerance. I call on everyone to act responsibly and with restraint,’’ Shabtai said.
Saturday night was ‘‘Laylat alQadr’’ or the ‘‘Night of Destiny,’’ the most sacred in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Islamic authorities estimated 90,000 people gathered for intense nighttime prayers at Al-Aqsa, the third-holiest site in Islam.
A large crowd of protesters screamed ‘‘God is great’’ outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate, and police were pelted with rocks and water bottles. Police patrols fired stun grenades as they moved through the area, and a police truck periodically fired a water cannon.
Palestinian medics said 64 Palestinians were wounded, mostly by rubber bullets, stun grenades or beatings, among them a woman whose face was bloodied. Eleven people were hospitalised, they said.
One man with a small boy yelled at the police as they marched by. ‘‘You should be ashamed!’’ he said.
Earlier, police reported clashes in the Old City, near AlAqsa, and in the nearby east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where dozens of Palestinians are fighting attempts by Israeli settlers to evict them from their homes. Police reported several arrests, and said one officer was struck in the face with a rock.