GAZA/JERUSALEM - Israeli police raided Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque before dawn on Wednesday to try to clear groups it said were barricaded inside, leading to clashes with worshippers and triggering an exchange of crossborder fire with Gaza. Palestinian fighters fired at least nine rockets from Gaza into Israel, prompting airstrikes from Israel which hit what it said were weapon production sites for the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the blockaded coastal enclave. Hamas did not claim responsibility for the rocket attacks but said they were a response to the raid on Al-Aqsa, where clashes in 2021 set off a 10-day war with Gaza. Ground-shaking explosions from the airstrikes rocked Gaza. Witnesses said Israeli tanks also shelled Hamas positions. “We are not interested in an escalation but we are ready for any scenario,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
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The Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, is Islam’s third holiest site and tens of thousands come to pray there during Ramazan. It is also Judaism’s most sacred site, revered as Temple Mount, a vestige of the two biblical Jewish temples. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 12 Palestinians had sustained injuries during the raid, including from rubber-tipped bullets and beatings, in clashes with police. It said Israeli forces had prevented its medics from reaching the area. “In the yard to the eastern part of the compound, the police fired tear gas and stun grenades,” said Fahmi Abbas, a worshipper who was at the mosque when the raid occurred. “Then they stormed in and started beating everyone.” Videos circulating on social media, showed fireworks going off and police beating people inside one of the mosque buildings. Police video showed police entering the building while fire crackers exploded in the darkness. “I was sitting on a chair reciting (the Quran),” an elderly woman told media outside the mosque, struggling to catch her breath. “They hurled stun grenades, one of them hit my chest,” she said, crying.
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Israeli police said officers entered the compound after what it called masked agitators locked themselves inside the mosque and after attempts to remove them by dialogue failed. More than 350 people inside were arrested and removed from the compound, police said. “Throughout the presence of police forces in the compound, stones were thrown and multiple firecrackers were set off inside the mosque by many law-breaking individuals and rioters,” the police statement said, adding that two officers were wounded. Thousands of worshippers had been spending the night in the mosque compound amid fears of possible clashes with Jewish visitors to the site for Passover. Under a longstanding “status quo” arrangement governing the compound, non-Muslims can visit but only Muslims are allowed to worship. Some Jewish visitors have increasingly prayed there despite that arrangement.
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