A new Israeli raid at Al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem this [Friday] morning left 31 Palestinians injured, including three journalists. Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades as they entered the compound of the Muslim holy site.
Palestinians threw stones at the Israeli police, who were dressed in full riot gear (see photo below). A small fire was also reported at the compound, with Palestinians blaming Israeli police for setting a tree alight, while the police said that the fire was the result of Palestinians throwing fireworks. Israeli police blamed Palestinians for throwing rocks, and said that they waited until early morning prayers ended before entering the compound.
The Muslim holy site has been the centre of days of violence amid heightened tensions following a series of attacks inside Israel and police raids in the West Bank, which Israel is illegally occupying.In a meeting with a United States State Department delegation on Thursday, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel was responsible for the escalation in the occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Tens of thousands of Muslims are expected at Al-Aqsa later in the day [today. Ed.] for Friday prayers.
Visits by Jewish groups were suspended from Friday for the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
This year, the fasting month has coincided with the Jewish Passover and major Christian holidays, with tens of thousands of people from all three faiths flocking to Jerusalem's Old City.
The second report is from P.J. O'Rourke's excellent book, Holidays in Hell.
The dim interior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was the size of a large suburban house lot. There were no furnishing at all except luminous antique carpets spread two and three deep across the entire floor. Scores of columns, thick as automobiles, supported a roof so high it was nearly invisislbe. A few of the slippered worshipopers knelt alone on prayer rugs; others gathered in small groups along the walls. For the next four hours,...I hid in these majestic shadows....
There was, in fact, a demonstration after prayers, though not a very exciting one.Men came out ofr Al-Aqsa and yelled; women came out of the Dome of the Rock and shrieked. An imam...was hoisted upon shoulders and carried around the Dome. Dozens of pocket-sized Qu'rans were waved in the air.
True to Arab form, the demonstration immediately broke into two quarrelling factions: the group hoisting the imam wanted to keep a strictly religious tone of outrage to the proceedings; the other group wanted to wave a small, homemade Palestinian flag and scream at the Israelis.
The soldiers along the walls looked tense, and one platoon moved into the enclosure and stood along the edge of the Dome's platform with weapons in array. But they didn't interfere. A few young Muslims made feints at collecting stones to throw but didn't follow through. With nothing to oppose it, the demonstration died down in half an hour.
P.J.'s account, dated January 1988, is from the chapter entitled "The Holy Land -- God's monkey house". Nuff said.
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