TEL AVIV — At least three people were injured on Monday when dozens of Muslim worshippers clashed with Israeli security forces outside a main entrance to the Temple Mount.
There are multiple reports that the rioters attacked Israeli police with stones and other objects.
The protesters were being egged on by the Waqf, the Mount’s Islamic custodians. And Mustafa Barghouti, chairman of the Palestinian National Initiative party and a leader in the anti-Israel boycott movement, was reportedly present at the scuffles.
The rioters were purportedly protesting the Israeli government’s decision to install metal detectors at the entrances to the Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The activists seemingly failed to note that Israel’s new security measures were put into place in direct response to the murderous Palestinian terrorist attack at the Mount last Friday in which three terrorists somehow smuggled weapons onto the site. Islam also considers the Mount to be holy.
The Waqf called on Muslims to protest Israel’s security measures while also seemingly failing to note that three Waqf officials were reportedly detained in Israeli police raids over the weekend under suspicion that they aided the terrorist attack.
The Times of Israel reported on today’s unrest:
During the scuffles near Lions Gate, police officers called to the scene to disperse protesters blocking a road adjacent to the Old City were attacked with rocks and other objects, police said.
The Red Crescent told the Palestinian Wafa news agency that five protesters were injured during the confrontations, including the chairman of the Palestinian National Initiative party, Mustafa Barghouti.
The Wafa report said that three people were injured after being beaten by police, one person was injured by a stun grenade and Barghouti was hit in the head with a rubber-coated bullet.
Ynetnews further reported:
Police were forced to disperse protestors using stun grenades, injuring two Palestinians who received medical treatment at the scene
Worshippers yelled “Allahu Akbar” at police and threw stones and other objects at officers. One protestor said, “We will not respect the metal detectors. We will continue to resist until the death and we will die here as martyrs.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party is not sitting idly on the sidelines. While Abbas reportedly condemned Friday’s terrorist attack in a phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Breitbart Jerusalem reported earlier today that the official Fatah Facebook page posted Abbas’s 2014 call for a “religious war” at the Al Aqsa Mosque.
The Palestinians have a history of using the Temple Mount to fuel violence against Israel. Riots broke out on the Mount in October 1990, ushering in the First Intifada, and the Second Intifada kicked off in September 2000 after the Palestinians used a visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon as a pretense to launch an orchestrated terrorist campaign after bolting U.S.-brokered talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
Two Israeli Border Police Officers were murdered and a third was wounded on Friday when three Palestinian terrorists opened fire at security forces near an entrance to the Temple Mount at the Lions Gate and then fled into the Mount complex. The Palestinian assailants, reportedly carrying two rifles and a pistol, were pursued by Israeli forces and were shot and killed as they tried to escape toward the mosques on the Mount.
Friday’s attack occurred less than two weeks after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed an anti-Israel resolution declaring Jerusalem’s Old City and its ancient walls to be “occupied” sites and listed the areas as Palestinian heritage sites in “danger.”
And the terrorist attack took place one week after UNESCO passed another anti-Israel resolution regarding the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron – considered the second holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount – claiming the tomb is a “Palestinian” world heritage site in danger.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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