Israel and Hamas declared a cease fire but the first day of peace doesn’t look real peaceful. Video footage is making the rounds that shows “new conflict at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem on Friday.”
Footage coming out of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. pic.twitter.com/e754CpFAxr
— Arwa Ibrahim (@arwaib) May 21, 2021
Clashes with police in Israel
At Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday, Israeli police clashed with Palestinian demonstrators in east Jerusalem. It was supposed to be the first day of an official cease-fire “between Israel and Hamas after two weeks of air attacks.”
Witnesses near the Mosque complex relate that “Palestinians threw Molotov cocktails and stones as Israeli police threw stun grenades.” There were lots of rubber bullets flying around too.
Al Jazeera journalist Arwa Ibrahim tweeted out video which “shows crowds of people attempting to flee as loud bangs ring out and smoke emanates from inside the compound.” Al Jazeera’s studios were bombed recently.
The same building housed both the Associated Press and ranking Hamas Officials. Not anymore. The latest skirmishes at the mosque were confirmed by Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld to Reuters. “Units responded and entered the Temple Mount area. They are dealing with these disturbances in order to contain the situation.”
Ibrahim also reported that Israeli forces “entered the mosque and fired tear gas and stun grenades at worshipers.” Al Jazeera is reporting that medical sources tell them that “15 people were wounded.”
The official cease-fire between Israel and Hamas “went into effect at 2 a.m. local time Friday.” The latest round of conflict stretched for nearly two weeks with a constant exchange of rockets. At least one fifth of the Palestinian missiles landed in Gaza killing their own civilians.
Started over Al-Aqsa
One of the biggest reasons that Hamas and Israel started bombing each other was “a series of clashes between Palestinian worshipers and the Israeli police on May 8, also at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
In that exchange, dozens of Palestinians were injured. Over the course of 11 days, “Hamas sent thousands of rockets in Israel’s direction, and the Israeli military responded by pummeling Gaza with airstrikes.”
Israel was the clear winner. “Dozens of people, mostly in Gaza, have died as a result.”
After all was said and done, the battle for Al Aqsa Mosque on the day of the ceasefire left “at least 20 Palestinians were injured, with two taken to hospital.”
Nearby, In Sheikh Jarrah, “police violently broke up a peaceful protest of hundreds of Palestinians and Jewish Israelis because one of the participants waved a Palestinian flag.” Barricades went up around several East Jerusalem neighborhoods.
The IDF was well prepared “for unrest in the West Bank, including in Hebron where Hamas supporters were planning to celebrate ‘the resistance’s victory.'” IDF announced that “the Border Police, sent to Lod in Israel to put down Palestinian protests against gun-toting Zionist vigilante groups, were to return to the West Bank.”
