Fear of new conflict rises
Almost one year after confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in Jerusalem led to war in the Gaza Strip, escalating tension in the city during the holy month of Ramadan has raised fears that events of 2021 could repeat.
At least 158 Palestinians were wounded when Israeli riot police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Friday where they were met by stone throwing and hurled firecrackers.
The Al-Aqsa compound sits on a plateau in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised by most in the international community.
For Muslims, the compound hosts Islam's third-holiest site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock, a seventh-century structure believed to be where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
The compound is also where Jews believe the Biblical Jewish temples once stood and is known to them as Temple Mount.
The contested site has been the focal point of the decades-long Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
"Jerusalem is perhaps the number one issue that has the potential of triggering wide-scale violence," said Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
"We have seen that in the past," he said.
Deadly attacks on Israelis by Palestinians in the past two weeks and Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has caused outrage and the temperature in the holy city is reaching boiling point as the festivals of Ramadan, Passover and Easter are all marked this month.
At a rally in Gaza, a spokesman for Hamas, which rules the enclave, said that Israel's use of force at the holy site would not go unanswered.
Almost a year ago in May 2021, Palestinian armed groups fired rockets into Israel after Hamas demanded Israeli police withdraw from Al-Aqsa and the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where a court threat to dispossess Palestinian residents led to protests and confrontations. In the 11-day war that followed, 250 Palestinians in Gaza and 13 people in Israel were killed.
The Israeli army has killed 47 Palestinians so far this year.
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