Jerusalem: Fresh clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque compound injured 42 people on the last Friday of Ramadan, following weeks of violence at the flashpoint religious site.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, which gave the injury toll, said no one was seriously hurt but 22 people were taken to hospital.
Israeli police released footage that showed young men on the compound hurling stones and fireworks in Friday’s early hours. Officers entered the site at dawn.
A police statement said they went in to contain “rioters and lawbreakers” some of whom were trying to throw stones down towards the Western Wall, the sacred Jewish site below Al Aqsa.
Police said officers used “riot dispersal means” to contain the unrest and that three people had been arrested, two for throwing stones and one for “inciting the mob”.
Over the past two weeks, nearly 300 Palestinians have been injured in Al Aqsa clashes.
Jerusalem Day
In Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander on Friday told a Jerusalem Day rally that Israel’s actions were creating conditions for its own destruction. He was addressing after a new domestically-made Kheibar Buster missile was displayed.
State television said millions of Iranians joined rallies marking Quds Day, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, in state-organised marches across the country.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech that anti-Israeli protests and attacks showed that Palestinians rejected compromises by Arab authorities with Israel.
“What has happened in Palestine in recent years annuls all plans for compromise with the Zionist enemy (Israel) because no plan for Palestine can be implemented in the absence or contrary to the opinions of its owners, the Palestinians,” Khamenei said, speaking in Arabic and addressing Palestinians and other Arabs.
Thus, Khamenei said, all previous peace agreements — such as the 1993 Oslo Accords, the two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and former US President Donald Trump’s plan dubbed the Deal of the Century “are null and void”.
President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s military commanders and senior officials also attended the rallies in which people were allowed to march through the streets, the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic two years ago.
Iran’s Jerusalem Day rallies are held annually in support of Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state in territories captured by Israel in a 1967 war, on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
“Stop your vicious deeds. You know well that we are people of action and reaction, Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami, addressing Israel, told demonstrators in Tehran.
“Our responses are painful. You create conditions for your own destruction. We will not leave you alone ...You know better than me what will befall you if you take evil action. Iran’s military has vowed to retaliate harshly against any attack by Israel, which has often voiced concern over the Iranian nuclear programme. Tehran says the programme is for peaceful purposes only.
