With masked Palestinian gangs at the Temple Mount hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails as Israeli police, Gaza-based terrorist group Hamas has given a call for more violence in Jerusalem during the upcoming weekly Friday prayers.
As the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan coincides with the Jewish Passover festivities, acts of Palestinian terrorism and rioting have become a regular feature. “As in recent days, this [Thursday] morning at the end of the Fajr prayer, dozens of lawbreakers and masked men rioted and disturbed the order on the Temple Mount with severe violence,” the Israeli police said in a statement obtained by the Legal Insurrection.
On Wednesday, “lawbreakers and rioters threw Molotov cocktails from the mosque, one of which fell on the carpet of the entrance to the Mosque, causing a fire that was extinguished immediately and another in the doorway of the mosque, which could have led to a fire on the spot,” the statement added.
Videos on social media show Palestinian mobs assaulting Jews on their way to the Western Wall and masked Arab men pelting stones at busses carrying Jewish worshipers.
The Israeli security forces are trying to contain the surging violence in Jerusalem. “The Israeli forces reportedly fired rubber bullets and tear gas while the rioters hurled fireworks and threw stones at them,” Israeli TV channel i24News reported Thursday. “Video showed security forces attempting to confine the rioters to inside the Al Aqsa Mosque building.”
In recent weeks, a string of deadly Palestinian attacks carried out by terrorists linked to ISIS, Hamas, and other terror groups, have killed 14 innocent people in Israel.
The Times of Israel reported Hamas’s call for Arab ‘mobilization’ in Holy City:
The Hamas terror group on Thursday called on Palestinians to “mobilize” for Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in defense of the holy site and Jerusalem.In a statement, the organization hailed the steadfastness of protesters who “repelled the incursions of the occupation and its settlers with courage and pride, assuring everyone far and wide that Al-Aqsa has men who protect it and defend its purity, despite the ugliness of aggression and terrorism of the occupiers.”
The wave of Palestinian terror and rioting is now accompanied by Hamas rocket fire. Gaza-based terrorist groups fired rocket barrages into Israel on Wednesday night, “with a rocket damaging a parked car and a wall near a home in the college city of Sderot,” in southern Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to the Hamas rockets with strikes at terrorist infrastructure inside Gaza. “The violence on the Temple Mount threatens a wider regional conflict as a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on Thursday night,” Israeli news website YnetNews noted. “In response, Israeli warplanes struck targets in the Palestinian coastal enclave, attacking a military post and tunnel system, according to the Israel Defense Forces, which later prompted terrorists to fire another rocket salvo,” the news outlet added.
Amid deadly Palestinian violence, the Arab League — a body comprising 22 member states — is pouring fuel into the fire. It is spreading rumors that Israel allowed Jews and non-Muslims to pray at the Temple Mount and that as “such actions were a flagrant affront to Muslim feelings and could trigger wider conflict,” the Qatari state-run Al Jazeera TV network reported Thursday. “Our demands are clear that Al-Aqsa and Haram al-Sharif in all its area is a sole place of worship for Muslims,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al Safadi declared at the League’s meeting.
The Israeli government denied the Arab claims. “The [Israeli] foreign minister [Yair Lapid] insisted the official policy barring Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount remains and that it is backed by the security establishment, The Times of Israel reported Thursday.
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