Israeli forces brutally assaulted Palestinians inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday night and forcibly removed them from the site where they were praying.
Videos showed dozens of heavily armed officers storming the site, used stun grenades and fired tear gas into the Qibli prayer hall where hundreds of men, women, elderly people and children were staying overnight to pray.
The raid took place before dawn on Wednesday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent reported injuries but did not elaborate on how many people were hurt. It said in a statement that Israeli forces were preventing its medics from reaching Al-Aqsa.
“I was sitting on a chair reciting (Qur’an),” an elderly woman told the Reuters news agency while sitting outside the mosque, struggling to catch her breath. “They hurled stun grenades, one of them hit my chest,” she said.
Israeli police released a statement saying it detained dozens of “rioters” from Al-Aqsa Mosque to restore order at the site. The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs estimates that between 400-500 men have been arrested.
In the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to condemn the assault and confront Israeli troops at checkpoints and army posts. Demonstrations also took place in Gaza, Umm al-Fahm (a Palestinian town in Israel) and the Jordanian capital Amman.
