Al-Aqsa battle

Dubai TV | Press TV 090928
[LinkTV/Mosaic]

- Several people were wounded on Sunday in clashes at Al Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint site sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Shops throughout the Muslim quarter of the Old City reopened after staging a partial strike following the violence, in which 17 Israeli police and around a dozen Palestinians were injured.
The Hamas government ruling Gaza called for an emergency meeting of a special committee set up in 1975 by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to preserve the Arabic-Islamic identity of the Holy City. Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh made the call to King Mohammad VI of Morocco who chairs the Al Quds Committee saying it should 'defend Al Aqsa Mosque... against the aggressions of Jews', a statement said on Monday.
Sunday's fighting broke out when a Jewish group entered the mosque compound, which is considered the holiest site in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, and which has been a central faultline in the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict. Around 150 Muslim worshippers surrounded the group and began throwing rocks at Israeli police guarding them, and they responded with stun grenades. Police said the visitors were French tourists, but the Palestinians insisted they were Jewish extremists, part of a group of some 200 religious Jews who had assembled earlier outside the gates to the compound.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Erekat says incident at Temple Mount on eve of Yom Kippur redolent of former PM Sharon's visit to site in 2000, which sparked second intifada; 'providing police escort for settlers who are against peace at all costs not act of someone who is committed to peace'.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• ChoiceJJ
• Israel
• Jerusalem
• Aqsa
• jjvanka