Palestinian protests against new Israeli laws aimed at weakening Israel’s judiciary: A week of violence in the Al-Aqsa mosque
Raids by Israeli police on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the most holy Muslim site in Jerusalem, have triggered a spike in violence that continued to spiral in recent days, drawing several regional actors into a deadly back-and-forth.
Police said they were working to clear men who had barricaded themselves inside the compound midweek, flinging fireworks and rocks, while social media videos of the incursions showed Israeli officers in riot gear chasing and using clubs to beat Palestinians inside the mosque. Palestinians gathered there after the leader of a fringe fundamentalist Jewish group said they should hold a goat sacrifice at the sacred compound.
Those shocking images of physical violence in turn sparked dozens of missiles fired from southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip against Israeli targets, Israeli retaliatory airstrikes on both territories, and a subsequent pair of attacks Friday on civilians in the occupied West Bank and Tel Aviv, which have left two British-Israeli settlers and an Italian tourist dead. The militant group Hamas has not claimed responsibility for either Friday attack, but instead praised them as valid retaliation for the prior behavior of Israeli police.
On Saturday, Israel announced it would extend a closure on Palestinians entering Israel from the West Bank, and would also suspend special entry permits for Palestinians in Gaza to visit Israel for Ramadan prayers and for work.
The escalating conflict in Israel and the occupied territories has played out against a backdrop of religious celebrations — Ramadan for Muslims, Passover for Jews and Easter for Christians — that has served to exacerbate hostilities and inflame existing tensions between separate communities.
At a moment of maximum political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced weeks of unrelenting criticism for his coalition government’s plans to weaken the country’s judiciary, protesters are continuing their weekly rally but have agreed to cancel a march against the proposed legislation. A leader of the protests toldNPR that the decision had been taken because it was so busy for national police forces.
The incident of a car ramming attack in Tel Aviv: Israeli and Italian authorities said the attack occurred in the Golan Heights
The two sisters were killed in the West Bank as they traveled in a car. Their mother was wounded and hospitalized.
On Friday, one person was killed and seven others injured in a car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv. Police said that the car was driven by a 45-year-old resident of Kfar Kasem, a predominantly Arab city east of Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu called up reserve troops for the border force in order to confront what he called “terror attacks.”
The Israel Defense forces said that one landed in the southern part of the Golan Heights. The IDF said it didn’t need to intercept the rockets.
The Six-Day War in 1967, during which Israel captured the Heights from Syria, began the process of annexing it in 1981. The UN Security Council considered the territory of the Golan Heights to be occupied.
In a separate development on Saturday night, the IDF killed a 20-year-old Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank town of Azzoun, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health.
Multiple suspects threw a device towards soldiers in the town of Azzun, according to the IDF. A person was hit when soldiers responded with live bullets. The IDF soldiers did not get injured, according to the statement.
The victim, an Italian tourist, was named by Israeli and Italian authorities as Alessandro Parini. He was a 35-year-old lawyer according to Italian media. The Israeli authorities said the incident was a terror attack.
Israel’s response to the Syrian attacks on Sunday, and a Palestinian adviser to President Assad, has been blamed on the Hamas militant group
Israel initially claimed to have responded with fire into Syria from where the rockets were fired. The military said Israeli fighter jets attacked Syrian army sites.
A Damascus-based Palestinian group loyal to the Syrian regime claimed responsibility for launching the three missiles Saturday, reported Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV.
The report quoted Al-Quds Brigade, a militia different than the larger Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing with a similar name, as saying it fired the rockets to retaliate for the police raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque.
The rocket strikes are part of the previous, present and continuing response to the brutal enemy, according to an adviser to President Assad.
He died at a time of heightened violence in the West Bank. Over 90 Palestinians and At least half of the people killed by Israeli fire this year have been affiliated with militant groups, according to an Associated Press tally.
The leader of a local armed group in the north of the West Bank claimed to have killed an alleged Israeli spy who had tipped off the Israeli military to where their members were. Israeli security forces targeted and killed several key members of the group in recent months.
On Sunday, when tens of thousands of Jews will gather at the Western Wall for the special Passover priestly blessing, police officers were expected to be in Jerusalem. Large groups of people gather each day for prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramzan next to the Al- Aqsa Mosque, where the holiest site for Jews is the Western Wall.
Doron Turgeman met his commanders on Saturday to have a security assessment. He accused the Hamas militant group, which rules the Gaza Strip, of trying to incite violence ahead of Sunday’s priestly blessing with false claims that Jews planned to storm the mosque.
“We will allow the freedom of worship and we will allow the arrival of Muslims to pray,” he said, adding that police “will act with determination and sensitivity” to ensure that all faiths can celebrate safely.