Muslims and riot police clash at sacred site

Tensions have been high in the spot, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, since Israel said it wanted to restore Jewish religious sites in the West Bank.

Israeli riot-control forces waiting outside rushed into the area after Jews at the Western Wall were attacked by stone-throwing gangs.

Other Muslim worshippers intervened to try to defuse the clash, and police eventually withdrew.

Palestinian medics reported 13 injuries. Police said 15 officers also suffered light injuries.

Always tense, the compound has recently seen sporadic clashes linked at least in part to the Israeli government decision to include the West Bank shrines on the heritage site list.

Najeh Btirat, an official with the Muslim clerical authority that administers the compound, said the clash followed a mosque sermon on the issue.

“The Friday sermon focused on the Islamic sites that are being targeted by Israel and the need to preserve them,” he said. About 300 young men threw stones at police after prayers, he said.

Skirmishes also broke out in the West Bank city of Hebron after Friday prayers but no serious injuries were reported. A group of about 100 Palestinians protested outside the holy site known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi mosque.

The Hebron site is one of the two included on the Israeli national heritage list. The other is Rachel’s Tomb, adjacent to the city of Bethlehem.

Israel captured both sites, along with the rest of east Jerusalem and the West Bank, in the 1967 Middle East war. The Jerusalem compound is under Israeli security control, but day-to-day administration has been left in the hands of a Muslim clerical body known as the Waqf. Jews are not allowed to pray at the site.