Israeli police storm Al-Aqsa Mosque, raising fears of wider fighting | CPT PPP Coverage

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Crowds of Palestinians gathered around a police station in Jerusalem on Wednesday, waiting anxiously for their loved ones — many of them wearing blood-stained shirts and limping on bandaged legs — to trickle out of detention.

People leaving detention said police used batons, chairs, rifles and whatever else they could find to strike Palestinians, including women and children, who responded by setting off firecrackers and hurling stones. Outside the mosque’s gate, police dispersed crowds of young men with stun grenades and rubber bullets.

Israeli police said they were not immediately able to confirm the reports and videos showing officers beating Palestinians.

Amin Risheq, a 19-year-old from east Jerusalem, lifted his bloodied shirt to show his worried mother red blotches all over his back and his bandaged arm, which he said was struck by a tear gas canister. He said that after being beaten and forced to lay on the floor of the mosque with dozens of others, his hands zip-tied behind his back, he was taken to the police station where he said he did not have access to a toilet, medical attention or water for over six hours. “They treated us like animals,” he said.

Since Ramadan began March 22, scores of Muslim worshippers have repeatedly tried to stay overnight in the mosque, a practice that is typically permitted only during the last 10 days of the monthlong holiday. Israeli police have entered nightly to evict the worshippers, stirring tensions with young Palestinians who demand to pray at the holy site until dawn.

Tensions over control of the holy site have been heightened by calls from Jewish ultranationalists to carry out a ritual slaughter of a goat in the compound, imitating the ancient ritual sacrifice performed on Passover in biblical times.

Israel bars ritual slaughter on the site, but calls by Jewish extremists to revive the practice, including offers of cash rewards to anyone who even attempts to bring an animal into the compound, have amplified fears among Muslims that Israel is plotting to take over the site. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is committed to preserving the status quo at the compound.