Jerusalem/Gaza: Israeli police imposed fresh restrictions on access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem on Friday, amid rising tension in the holy city. The move sparked clashes between the Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces once again.
"Israeli police have banned men under 35 from entering the compound," Sheikh Azzam al-Khatib, director-general of the Organization for Muslim Endowments and Al-Aqsa Affairs, a Palestinian NGO, told Anadolu Agency.
He said that women from all ages were, however, allowed into the holy site.
Israeli police were seen deployed in East Jerusalem since early morning with roadblocks erected at all entrances to the Old City.
Tension has been running high in East Jerusalem since Israel closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound last week following the shooting of an extremist rabbi in west Jerusalem.
The closure of Al-Aqsa, along with the killing of a young Palestinian man suspected of shooting the rabbi, fueled angry protests by Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
At the Qalandia checkpoint separating Ramallah from Jerusalem, troops fired rubber bullets as several hundred protesters marched, some throwing rocks and petrol bombs.
In East Jerusalem, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters hurling firecrackers and burning tires that sent up huge clouds of black smoke in Shoafat refugee camp.
Palestinian and regional anger, still simmering over Israel’s war with Gaza’s Hamas movement in July and August, has focused in the last two weeks on Jerusalem’s holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount.
For decades, Israel has maintained a ban on Jews praying at the site, which houses the Dome of the Rock and the 8th-century Al-Aqsa mosque and was also the site of ancient Jewish temples.
But in recent weeks, protests have gathered momentum against a campaign by far-right Jewish nationalists to be allowed to pray there.
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