Clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police left 42 injured, but none seriously, Friday morning on the esplanade of the Mosques, hotbed of tensions in the center of Jerusalem, said the rescuers.
“There were 42 wounded during clashes with the occupying forces” on the esplanade, located in East Jerusalem, Palestinian sector occupied by Israel, announced the Palestinian Red Crescent. An initial assessment reported 12 injured.
Of the 42 wounded, 22 were transported to a hospital in Jerusalem, but “none is in serious condition”, said the Palestinian Red Crescent.
“Rioters” “thrown stones” which prompted the Israeli police to enter the esplanade and use “means to disperse the crowd”, the police said in a statement.
The police fired rubber bullets, according to an AFP journalist on the spot, and tear gas canisters, according to other witnesses.
Over the past two weeks, violent clashes have injured more than 250 Palestinians in and around the Esplanade of the Mosques, Islam’s third holiest site and Judaism’s holiest site known as the Temple Mount.
These clashes have raised fears of a greater escalation between Israelis and Palestinians, against a backdrop of bloody anti-Israeli attacks and Israeli military operations punctuated by deadly clashes in the occupied West Bank since the end of March.
The new clashes come as Muslim worshipers mark the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, which is due to end early next week.
This Friday is also “Youm al-Quds al-alami”, an annual day of “defense” of Jerusalem, initiated by Iran in the wake of the Islamic revolution of 1979.
Thursday evening, tenors of the Palestinian Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, close to Iran, had organized a rally in the Gaza stadium to mark this day and called to “defend” Jerusalem and the esplanade of the Mosques.
General Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, took part in this event by videoconference and affirmed that “the State of Israel will be defeated”.