Israel-Palestine Revisited in the Light of Recent Israeli Military and Anti-Mexican Assemblies
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The Israeli military said that it struck Hamas targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza after dozens of rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into Israel.
The number of rockets fired from Lebanon was higher than it’s been since 2006 but there were no deaths from the strikes.
Israeli police said it stormed al-Aqsa Wednesday after “hundreds of rioters and mosque desecrators (had) barricaded themselves” inside, adding that once they entered, stones and fireworks were thrown at them by “agitators.”
The escalating conflict in Israel and the occupied territories has played out against a backdrop of religious celebrations — Ramadan for Muslims, Passover for Jews and Easter for Christians — that has served to exacerbate hostilities and inflame existing tensions between separate communities.
The violence also took place as Israel grapples with the aftermath of mass protests over a controversial judicial overhaul, which only slightly waned last week after a pause was announced, leaving the country deeply divided.
Most of the world thinks that Jerusalem is under Israeli occupation and that Al-Aqsa mosque is located in the Old City. Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, and considers both East and West Jerusalem part of its “eternal capital.”
A “status quo” agreement between Israel and Jordan governs the Muslim and Christian holy sites there. But the specifics of the agreement are constantly changing, says Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel-Palestine at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
Israeli police have been raiding the area for many years with varying intensity, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian Territories.
What’s different this time, she says, is that it occurs during a climate of record levels of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, and inflammatory rhetoric towards Palestinians by some of the Israeli government’s far-right ministers.
Overnight Jews at the Temple Mount – a reminder of Israel’s efforts during the Tuesday Night Israeli-Jewish Mass Violations
Calls for Muslims to stay in the mosque overnight increased after Jewish extremist groups had encouraged Jews to go up to the compound and sacrifice goats as part of ancient Passover ritual that is no longer practiced today.
The Temple Mount visitors are allowed to visit, but they are not allowed to pray under the status-quo agreement. Some members of the current Israeli government have campaigned to allow Jewish prayer there.
Police said they were working to clear men who had barricaded themselves inside the compound midweek, flinging fireworks and rocks, while social media videos of the incursions showed Israeli officers in riot gear chasing and using clubs to beat Palestinians inside the mosque. The Palestinians gathered there overnight after a fringe fundamentalist Jewish group published calls to hold a goat sacrifice at the sacred compound.
While Israel’s jurisdiction over East Jerusalem isn’t recognized by international law, and Israeli entry into the al-Aqsa mosque is forbidden by the status quo agreement, it has repeatedly sought to prohibit overnight Muslim prayers there.
According to Zonszein, Israel claims that they had an agreement with the Jordanian custodian not to stay overnight, but that there has been no public knowledge of it.
Zonszein said that it was becoming another tool in conflict over the years. “Israel started to restrict it when it found it to be a way for Palestinians to provoke friction with Jewish Israelis.”
While it is customary to mainly do so in the last ten days of Ramadan, itikaf can be practiced at any time of the year and is not restricted to the holy month, said Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, Imam of al-Aqsa mosque and former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
The Waqf said that al-Aqsa mosque would not close its doors at night or during the day after Wednesday’s violence. Sabri said that the Muslims authorities at the site have the final say on prayer times.
Israel’s strikes on both Gaza and Lebanon are thus far seen to be relatively restrained compared to its response in 2021 and previous years, which saw much more aggressive rocket salvos targeting Jerusalem.
The Israeli government has been able to hide its domestic divisions because of security threats, but some say a larger-than-normal outbreak could cause them to lose their identity.
Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national Security advisor in Israel and senior fellow at Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel said the public is always supportive when these things begin, and there is a rally around the flag phenomenon.
Netanyahu’s response comes not only amid domestic upheaval, but also amid strained relations with the United States and Gulf allies, he said, adding that Netanyahu has generally been known to be cautious in his use of military force.
He said that the government might be able to de-escalate it but that it might not succeed and that it might be in the interests of Hamas and Hezbollah to exploit Israel.
The Palestinians will not be allowed to enter Israel from the West Bank, and will also no longer be allowed to enter Gaza for work and for prayers.
At a moment of maximum political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has faced weeks of unrelenting criticism for his coalition government’s plans to weaken the country’s judiciary, protesters are continuing their weekly rally but have agreed to cancel a march against the proposed legislation. One protest leader said the decision was taken because it was an intensive time for national police forces.
Two Israeli sisters killed in a car: Israeli attackers, Palestinians, and Italian man in Tel Aviv – a new challenge for Israel’s border force
Two British-Israeli sisters were shot to death in a car as they traveled through the occupied West Bank. Their mother survived but was hospitalized after being severely wounded.
Later in the day, a Palestinian Israeli citizen from a village close to Tel Aviv rammed his car into ranks of tourists walking along the city’s boardwalk, leaving several injured and an Italian man dead. Police in Israel killed the driver after he reached for an object that looked like a gun, but they later said it was not a gun. His family deny that he intended to carry out any kind of assault.
Netanyahu has also announced his government was calling up reserve forces for the country’s largely paramilitary border force starting Sunday, in order to confront what he termed “terror attacks.”