Israeli security forces entered the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem before dawn on Friday as thousands of Palestinians were gathered for prayers during the holy month of Ramadan, setting off a series of clashes.
Israel said its forces entered to remove rocks and stones that had been gathered in anticipation of violence. The holy site, which is sacred to Jews and Muslims, has often been a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian unrest, and was the centre of days of violence during Ramadan last year.
Videos circulating online showed Palestinians hurling rocks and police firing teargas and stun grenades on the sprawling esplanade surrounding the mosque. Others showed worshippers barricading themselves inside the mosque itself amid what appeared to be clouds of teargas.
The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said it evacuated a number of wounded people to hospitals. The endowment said one of the guards at the site was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.
The Israeli foreign ministry said dozens of masked men carrying Palestinian and Hamas flags had marched to the compound early Friday and gathered stones.
“Police were forced to enter the grounds to disperse the crowd and remove the stones and rocks, in order to prevent further violence,” it tweeted.
Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, condemned the Israeli police and said Israel “bears responsibility for the consequences”.
The police said they waited until prayers were over and the crowds started to disperse. In a statement, it said crowds started hurling rocks in the direction of the Western Wall, a nearby Jewish holy site, forcing them to act. They said they did not enter the mosque itself.
Palestinians view any large deployment of police at al-Aqsa as a major provocation.
The mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. It is built on a hilltop that is the most sacred site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount. It has been a flashpoint for Israeli-Palestinian violence for decades and was the centre of the 2000-2005 Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
Israel has been stunned in recent weeks by a string of attacks – some carried out by Arab citizens of Israel linked to or inspired by the Islamic State group, others by Palestinians, and cheered by militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
A total of 14 people have been killed in four attacks since 22 March, including a shooting rampage in Bnei Brak, an Orthodox Jewish city in greater Tel Aviv, carried out by a Palestinian attacker from Jenin.
Israel has carried out a wave of arrests and military operations across the occupied West Bank, setting off clashes with Palestinians.
The Palestinian health ministry said a 17-year-old died early Friday from wounds suffered during clashes with Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Jenin the day before.
At least 25 Palestinians have been killed in the recent wave of violence, many of whom had carried out attacks or were involved in the clashes, but also an unarmed woman and a lawyer who appears to have been killed by mistake.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians were expected to gather at al-Aqsa for Friday prayers.
Weeks of protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan last year eventually ignited an 11-day war with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
Israel had lifted restrictions and taken other steps to try to calm tensions ahead of Ramadan, which this year coincides with the Jewish Passover holiday and Christian Holy Week, bringing thousands of pilgrims and other visitors to Jerusalem.
But the attacks and the military raids have caused another wave of unrest.
Hamas condemned what it said were “brutal attacks” on worshippers at al-Aqsa by Israeli forces, saying Israel would bear “all the consequences”. It called on all Palestinians to “stand by our people in Jerusalem”.
Earlier in the week, Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza had called on Palestinians to camp out at the al-Aqsa mosque over the weekend. Palestinians have long feared that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it.
Israeli authorities say they are committed to maintaining the status quo, but in recent years nationalist and religious Jews have visited the site in large numbers with police escorts.
Israel captured East Jerusalem, home to al-Aqsa and other major holy sites, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognised internationally. Palestinians want the eastern part of the city to be the capital of a future independent state including the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel also captured during the war nearly 55 years ago.
