The ballet of emergency carts is incessant. They extract the wounded from the Mosque Plaza to transport them on a short trip through an alley in the Old City of Jerusalem to the ambulances stationed in front of the Lions Gate. Stretcher bearers take part in the operation at a run as the number of victims is high. Lying on his stretcher, a Palestinian raises his finger in faith. Most wince or are in shock. Incidents erupt when injured people hide their faces in order to prevent the police from photographing them to identify them. Some of them are affected in the face or in the eyes.Border guards fire tear gas canisters at the feet of Palestinian medical personnel and journalists standing outside the main entrance to Islam's third holiest site, which Jews call the Temple Mount.
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The Israeli security forces proceed in violence to the evacuation of the faithful.
Some, older, wear tunics.
Many are
chebab
(young).
Groups of deportees are chased.
The rare rebels are quickly subdued.
They are glued to a wall with their hands in the air.
Frightened women curl up in a corner, the time to let the storm pass.
Police reinforcements supply the first lines with stun grenades.
From the top of its minaret, a muezzin screams curses.
He denounces
"the aggression against al-Aqsa"
.
Of
"Allah Akbar"
fuse.
The sacred cause of al-Quds, Jerusalem in Arabic, is back and with it the Palestinian resistance.
This is the second time in less than 72 hours that the security forces have stormed the square.
On Friday, they intervened bluntly to dislodge worshipers who were showing with projectile throws their support for Palestinian residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood threatened with eviction from their homes in favor of settlers.
A pitched battle
During the night, the defenders of the Esplanade had prepared for battle. They intended to oppose the announced arrival at the place of worship of Jewish pilgrims who celebrate, as every year, the capture of East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War with a march in the Old City. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed that Israeli protesters could come to pray at the site they call the Temple Mount, a space they claim. Against the advice of the Shin Beth, the internal security service, and the army which feared a security crisis in the West Bank and an armed escalation with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Palestinians and Israeli Arabs from the strong Arab towns of the country had piled up piles of large stones and barricaded the doors of the al-Aqsa Mosque with tables and benches. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, had joined the movement. He called on his supporters living in Israel to occupy the holy places until the end of Ramadan. The flag of the Islamo-nationalists floated on a height.
Since the start of Ramadan, the city, occupied since 1967, has been in turmoil.
Sporadic clashes erupt after breaking the fast.
The closure to the public of the Damascus Gate Square, a place to meet and hang out on the nights of the holy month, served as a detonator.
Tired of war, the police reversed their decision.
The
chebab
, these young demonstrators celebrated their victory but the clashes resumed.
The police intervened as soon as they waved Palestinian flags and in Sheikh Jarrah, the protest against the eviction plan suspended by a Supreme Court decision gathered momentum.
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The Pressure Cooker seemed ready to explode. But early in the morning, the government announced that it ultimately would not allow settlers, messianics, yeshivot students, religious schools, and staunch Zionists drawn to the "Jerusalem march" to enter the compound. Then the Israeli police, who are monitoring the entrances to the Mosque esplanade, stormed the "minifortin". Welcomed by throwing stones, she invaded the premises without embarrassing herself with frills, with tear gas, stun grenades, fire from metallic rubber bullets and beatings. The Palestinians responded by throwing their stock of cobblestones in the direction of the police. The mosque was invested in the crash of gunfire. The evacuation took place in chaos.More than 300 wounded are counted including at least nine police officers. Five Palestinians are hospitalized in a condition deemed critical.
“The faithful feared the intrusion of colonists who want to start a religious war through the door of the Maghrebians.
They retaliated against the police when they entered the Esplanade en masse.
I was thrown out, ”
testifies Amjad Shihab, the representative of a large Palestinian family from East Jerusalem and independent candidate in the last Israeli legislative elections.
“The protesters weren't just attacking the Israelis.
The slogans also denounced the Palestinian Authority.
They demanded the departure of Abu Mazen
(the nickname of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Editor's note)
and the end of his corrupt regime, ”
continues the notable.
At midday, after being cleaned, the Esplanade is reopened to worshipers, with the exception of men aged 15 to 40.
Outside the walls of the Old City, the worst is narrowly avoided.
According to videos posted on social media, an Israeli motorist, assaulted by the crowd, lost control of his vehicle, ran into Palestinians and ran over one of them.
Bombarded with stones, he owes his salvation to the intervention of an armed police officer.
Tear gas on the esplanade of the mosques.
AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP
At the beginning of the afternoon, spirits ignited in the district of Cheikh Jarrah with the surprise visit of the extreme right deputies Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. The first is the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, a messianic and anti-Arab movement. The second is the leader of Otzma Yehudi, an openly racist organization advocating Jewish supremacy. The duo came to greet the inhabitants of a Jewish settlement located just in front of the house of the four families threatened with eviction. He is heckled by the neighbors, goes into the settlers' house and talks to them.
"They discuss the Jewish past of the neighborhood",
slips a relative of Itamar Ben Gvir in a corridor. The exit is tumultuous. Insults burst forth. Furious, Itamar Ben Gvir calls out his opponents behind a curtain of helmeted police officers, gun in hand. Described as a
“provocation”
by Palestinian residents, his detour looks like a last-ditch. On Friday, he had to dismantle at the request of Benyamin Netanyahu his
"new parliamentary office"
installed in a tent in front of the settlement. On Monday afternoon, he learned shortly before the start of the “Jerusalem march” that it had been canceled outright.
According to tradition, the parade enters the Old City through the Damascus Gate.
It then joins the Western Wall and if possible the Mosques Esplanade via the Arab sector.
In recent years, police have barred Palestinians from a perimeter outside the Old City and ordered the closure of businesses along the route.
This time he stepped back to avoid overbidding.
At a time when the young yeshivot were to dance for joy in the square of the Damascus gate, the faithful were praying there for Asir, the afternoon prayer.
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Shortly after 6 p.m., bursts of rockets were fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad from the Gaza Strip.
One of them damaged a house about 15 kilometers from Jerusalem.
The Israeli army responded by bombing the coastal enclave, killing nine people, including three minors, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
On the outskirts of the Old City, at the same time, the gathering of religious Zionists was nipped in the bud.
Filter dams prevented residents of West Jerusalem and settlers arriving by car from approaching the ramparts.
“We're disgusted.
Israel prefers the Palestinians to the defenders of Zionism, ”
blurted out a settler from Hebron, in the West Bank.