Israel’s evacuation of Haram Al Sharif draws stinging rebukes
Israeli forces evacuated the Haram Al Sharif compound as clashes broke out between Palestinians and police, drawing anger across the Muslim world.
Police said they evacuated the area housing Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock after a Molotov cocktail damaged a police post on Tuesday.
Scuffles broke out between police and Palestinians before the site was cleared.
Two Palestinians minors accused by Israeli forces of throwing the firebomb were arrested and appeared in court yesterday.
The site was reopened yesterday, but under a heavier security presence.
The United Nations Middle East envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, urged both sides to “respect the status quo” at the holy site and exercise restraint “to avoid inflaming an already tense situation”.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the “dangerous Israeli escalation” and warned of “serious repercussions”. He called on the international community to intervene.
The closure of the compound also drew censure from Jordan, the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
Abdul Nasser Abu Basal, Jordan’s Minister of Islamic Affairs and Holy Sites, described the barring of Muslim worshippers from the site as “a flagrant assault on all religious values, rights and freedom” and “an attack on all Muslims that touches the entire Islamic nation”.
The site in Jerusalem’s Old City is revered by Muslims as well as Jews and is the third-holiest site in Islam.
Israel has controlled the area since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and its military has occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank since then.
Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital and all lands seized by Israel in 1967.
The Old City, home to some of the holiest sites in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, has remained at the centre of the decades-long conflict.
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said a Palestinian armed with a knife confronted troops in the city of Hebron and was shot and killed on Tuesday.
It said no soldier was injured. The Palestinian higher judicial council said the man, 40, had worked in a Palestinian court in Hebron. It denounced the shooting as “a despicable crime”.
In a separate incident in the West Bank, a Palestinian, 23, was shot dead when clashes broke out after Israeli troops entered the Palestinian town Salfit, residents and the Palestinian Health Ministry said.