New metal detectors installed at the entrance to the al-Aqsa mosque following a terrorist attack last Friday has resulted in increased tensions between Israeli authorities and Palestinians.
Last Friday three assailants and an accomplice entered the Temple Mount compound, known to Muslims as the Haram esh-Sharif, where they shot and killed Druse-Israeli police officers Hayil Satawi and Kamil Shnaan. The assailants, Palestinians from the Arab-Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm, were shot dead on site by other police officers.
As a result of the attack, Israeli authorities decided to install metal detectors around the Temple Mount similar to the ones used to screen visitors to the Western Wall.
However, these new detectors drew immediate ire from Palestinians and the Muslim world, as it was a show of Israeli control over the third holiest site in Sunni Islam. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, the Temple Mount compound has been under the authority of the government of Jordan via the Wakf Islamic trust.
Violent protests erupted around Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday after Fatah, the governing party of the Palestinian Authority, called on Muslims to demonstrate a “day of rage” against the metal detectors.
Dozens of Palestinians and five Israeli officers were reported injured.
Hamas, the governing party of the Gaza Strip, called for similar protests: “Let Friday be the turning point in the battle in the defence of Jerusalem and al-Aqsa”, said Hamas’ leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
Meanwhile prayers have been held outside of the compound so visitors would not pass through the detectors. The Wakf Islamic trust has instructed imams to not deliver prayers in their mosques on Friday, but to instead go to pray outside of the Temple Mount compound.
More than 3,000 police officers and five battalions of soldiers were called up on Thursday in preparation for Friday’s prayers as the IDF high command sees potential for clashes between protesters and Israeli authorities in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the West Bank.
